Accepted for/Published in: JMIR Human Factors
Date Submitted: Jun 4, 2023
Date Accepted: Jan 15, 2024
What Physicians and Patients Expect from Digital Agents for Consultations: A Qualitative Study
ABSTRACT
Background:
Physicians are overwhelmed by administrative tasks and spend too little time counseling patients, hampering health literacy, shared decision-making, and adherence to treatment.
Objective:
Do digital agents built on fast-evolving generative AI, such as ChatGPT, have the potential to improve healthcare counseling? We sought answers by asking patients and physicians for their opinions on the description of three digital agents, a Silent Digital Expert, a Communicative Digital Expert, and a Digital Companion.
Methods:
Our exploratory study conducted in-depth interviews with 25 patients and 22 physicians from a convenience sample. The patients and physicians were from a wide age range and came from different educational backgrounds or medical fields. All interviews were audio recorded and transcribed. The transcripts were deductively coded using MAXQDA and then summarized by code and interview. The resulting summaries were then clustered for interpretation.
Results:
We structured statements and quotes from patients and physicians according to three consultation phases: First: Silent and Communicative Digital Experts who support and are part of the consultation; second: Digital Experts who hand over to a Digital Companion for the time between consultations; third: Digital Companions supporting patients between consultations. Overall, patients and physicians were open to this kind of counseling support but expressed thoughtful concerns about various details across all digital agents.
Conclusions:
Considering the results and linking them to the literature, we derived nine requirements for designing digital agents to support counseling.
Citation
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Copyright
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